2012 Predictions and Presuppositions

I have decided to take a slightly different approach to my predictions post this year. Rather than write a well thought out and reasoned positions I’ll spew out the list of ideas I have been collecting. My goal for this post is less about proving myself right next year than to do a list that gives everybody something to think about. Hopefully we will expand on the themes as the year progresses.

The list in no particular order:

• We will all change careers – if you are doing the same thing today you were three years ago you are doing it wrong. If technology hasn’t changed what you thought your career was by now the economy has. Get ready because next year will be just as unsettling.

• Election year technology brings more annoying augmented reality – I thought Wolf Blitzer standing in front of virtual graphics was cool for about ten minutes but now it just gets on my nerves and the presidential election cycle will take this annoyance to a new level.

• App markets collapse under their own weight – we passed the million app mark and it will now become the focus of the market to get noticed. Sadly two guys in a garage will fade as marketing budgets begin to overwhelm the clever.

• Cloud content data loss litigation – This has probably already happened but now that everyone has at least heard the term cloud in a technology context we are due a high profile data loss story in the media that involves multimillion dollar consequences.

• Angry Birds Mayan Apocalypse 2012 – do I really need to explain this?

• Open Text market cap will surpass Research In Motion making it Waterloo’s biggest tech resident – who would have ever dreamed that as I write this RIM is worth several billion less than what Autonomy sold for. If RIM doesn’t make a dramatic turn around soon I will have reverse the names in my RIM Should Buy Open Text post from earlier this year.

• The Jive IPO initiates acquisition frenzy in social platforms – Up until now enterprise software players have been dabbling at creating their own social platforms but the Jive IPO will convince some they need to go faster and kick off acquisitions. Look for products like Broadvision‘s Clearvale to be early targets.

• Dropbox goes shopping – We have already seen Dropbox reacting to Box with their team product. Clearly they see the smaller contender encroaching on their value proposition and will want to expand their feature set, possibly through acquisition. If they don’t then it Box may well beat them to the IPO party.

• Someone who prefers Bing meets someone that prefers Google+ and time ends.

I will add more thoughts as they come to mind and I promise before January to evaluate my 2011 Predictions.